Monday, January 21, 2008

First Milestone

As I began to write this post, Edie plugged in the family's old hair dryer. It must have been with us for at least a decade and probably consumes a lot more energy than it should. At least, that's what I assume because the light in my room flickered as soon as I heard the dryer's fan running from behind the adjacent wall.


We watched a movie called Paris, Je t'Aime over the weekend, something I've been meaning to do for about half a year. It's a compilation of 18 short stories from different directors, set in 18 different arrondissements in Paris. The hook they used for North American posters when they screened the film was "stories of love from the city of love". It was certainly something worth seeing, even if to only compare the obviously contrasts in story-telling techniques that the directors used. Of the 18 scenes, the one I found most powerful was set in Faubourg Saint-Denis and directed by Tom Tyker. It was about a blind man reflecting his relationship with an actress, played by Natalie Portman, after receiving a cliche but tragic break up call. The way that it was narrated and filmed was just so incredibly powerful. Of course, this was only about seven minutes of the entire film. There was a great narrative about a woman in a red trench coat, an unlucky tourist in the metro and a W-T-F vampire moment with Elijah Wood strewn before and after that scene for good measure. Also, a good Feist song to wrap things all up.

Feist - La Meme Histoire (We're All in the Dance) (mp3)

In other news, Impressionable Youth Blog Favourite Two Hours Traffic have a new video for Nighthawks. Personally, I'm a little tired of this song because I listened to the intro so many times during the period that I was trying to win their contest for an iPod touch.



Also, I'd like to add a tiny blog milestone to our agenda. Impressionable Youth is now officially listed in the Elbo.ws Music Blog Aggregator. Yay! I feel like I've made a tiny step up in the world.

And with that out of the way, in the words of the blind man living in reality and in fiction somewhere in Paris, "je revisais mes examens, mes examens, mes examens..."

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Even Better than the Real Thing

So I think I've found my new television obsession! Jpod, the new CBC series based on the book of the same name by Vancouver-ite Douglas Coupland. He's been one of my favourite authors ever since I read "Shampoo Planet" back in grade 10, no matter how satirically grim he gets. Even my email address and obsessions with hippies and rugged city boys probably began there. Aside from all the preconceived notions, the show is actually quite good. It's got the post-modern quirkiness, Canadians and its a funny black comedy. And it's on Tuesday nights at 9pm, the same time as another favourite show, "House". Oh what to do?


Where have I seen the actor who plays Ethan before? He looks so familiar...

Moving aside, ImpressionableYouth introduced me to a Franz Ferdinand song "no", recorded as a musical interpretation of a poem, using the lyrics of David Shirgley. It's from Shirgley's 2005 book "Worried Noodles". The song is actually quite horrible, but somehow entertaining. Franz makes pretty good covers. Here's three more.



Franz Ferdinand - No (mp3)
Franz Ferdinand - All My Friends (LCD Soundsystem cover) (mp3)
Franz Ferdinand - Mis-shapes (Pulp cover) (mp3)
Franz Ferdinand - It won't be long (Beatles cover) (mp3)

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Is the sum greater than the whole or vice versa?

You know who I love? Sloan. How could you not love Sloan? If you are a kid growing up in Canada listening to rock music, you must have sang along to one of their crazily catchy songs one time or another. And their live shows are so much fun. Nobody does a better scissor kick that Chris Murphy (except perhaps Howlin' Pelle of the Hives). In any case... I heart Sloan.



Sloan - Good in Everyone (mp3)

And you know who else I love and admire? River Cuomos of Weezer fame. Come on, the guy probably has his PhD from Harvard by now and he was in one of the definitive bands of the 90's. He's an academic from one of the best ivy league school and he's a rock star! It's like the best of both worlds.



Weezer - Buddy Holly (mp3)

And they joined forces to record the track "Little Diane", a cover a Dion (not Celine) song for River's solo record "Alone, the Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomos".

Rivers Cuomo (with Sloan) - Little Diane (mp3)